Month: January 2009

Disclaimer : This blog post is not an effort to judge who is right or who is wrong neither is it about taking sides on appealing to religious sentiments of the readers. Here is a typical case study of how a nation can be victimised for the handiwork of the few radical hardliners and the whole world stands and watches nonplussed.

Its nearly a forthnight since outbreak on a mini scaled war in the Gaza Strip ! The two stakeholders under contention are the Hamas and the Israelis. At one side is The Hamas which is clearly a parasite that breeds amongs the palestine community and is least bothered about the extensive damage that inspite of loss of life among the community is relentlessly pursuing its own agenda and on the other side is a country that seems to have a hell care attitude towards humanity with a single minded hard vengenance as the only agenda

How could we justify this ongoing collateral damage where nearly 650 civilians have been killed which include children, women and more than 1400 injured in the last 14 days. Relief supplies of food and medicines has been blocked and barred from entry into the Gaza . Missile attacks on the power supplies of the gaza strip have rendered them dysfunctional and thus event ground water is not available to people. On one hand Israel’s Gross violation of Humanitarian rights of the those few Gaza residents and the whole world is watching helplessly. UN is just a dog barring its teeth but under the strong leash of other superpowers who are keeping mum allowing this to happen . On the othes hand is Palestine that has two parties. Fatah who are the moderates and the Hamas, who are the hardliners. Both these parties have been alternatively succeeding to power by capitalising on incumbent sentiments of the people there. Hamas assumed power since 2006 and has been actively pursuing ” intifada ” and has been on a suicidal streak ever since head on with Israel. The recent culmination of events that have unfolded is a result of this hideous agenda of Hamas.

There is this interesting recommendation on counter terrorism measures called ” The Gills Doctrine ” put forth by KPS Gill after his extensive experience combating Khalistani Insurgency at Punjab in the 80’s. The Gills Doctrine recommmends ”When fighting terrorists armed with military-issue hardware, the definition of what constitutes ‘minimal force’ requires recalibration. If terrorism is after all a new way of warfare, then the Government must be prepared to combat it on a war-footing. At the same time, there remains an overwhelming need to insulate the local population from suffering disproportionate collateral damage. For this reason, the use of area weapons and airpower is to be avoided, even if the result is heightened casualties on one’s own side”

In his approach to combat those who weild the relegious excuse to pursue terrorism strikes down with a strong handed persuasion that no relegion in earth advocates the use of violence / warfare on women and children and for that matter even against unarmed men. People who have been misled by such false idealogies need to be dealt with severly. He states in his doctrine ”Gill offered the terrorists a stark choice: they could either die for their idea of God, or live for themselves. There was no third option. Many Khalistanis responded as per logical dictates and surrendered. Those that did not, engaged in gun battles with the Police, and frequently ended up meeting their Maker. ” Some of his recommendations have been very much hailed by experts across the world. And is an interesting read on measures one can take to quell such insurgency.

Coming back to Attack on Gaza , On one hand it is very important for countries to intervene and talk to either of the countries to seek for a immediate cease fire to prevent further bloodshed of innocent lives. On other hand war is big business opportunity for many countries to intervene and play the big brother role . At current recession climate when countries are groping for solutions to lubricate the economy as well as to create a resource exchange this kind of mediation, peace keeping effort is an excellent excuse. As far as the Media is concerned it has been having a hay day for all this sensationalism with higher TRP’s and feeding us crazy like the day of Operation Desert Storm

Look at the world around us today. Close to home we have the LTTE rebels fighting a loosing war where a lot of civilians are being killed as collateral damage. A little far away we have Thailand nearly in a state of disorder. Then there is Pakistan trying all its antics at our homeland. Each of these scenarios have all possibility of getting played out or escalated to a Gaza like situation if we elect the wrong decision makers to power. These are times that require us to act responsibly and exert our franchise with great thought.

As the new year 2009 beckons amidst recession and financial turmoil things get gradually clear that this year will be more about a struggle for sustenance and consolidation unlike 2008. There will be more surprises and shakedown expected in the market where in it really gets tough going for large organizations carrying a lot of unnecessary baggage and archaic business practices. These are times to be lean and agile to change. Individuals need to multitask and double their roles in business to sustain this shakedown. Inspite of bailout efforts by governments and Fed and several Financial institutions to insulate the recession one thiing is pretty clear…. This slowdown is here to stay and the road to recovery is going to be long and slow. Accepting the economics of that will be the best foot forward. This period is an excellent opportunity for organizations to focus on initiatives like quality, bench marking practices to meet global standards .

I will looking at two emerging areas of technology that is of growing industry concern and needs our attention. Increasing utility of ICT and its related infrastructure has in one way made our lives easier and flat. But at the same time all these additional infrastructure burdens us with more usage of energy as well as indirectly towards global warming. Addressing this concern is a recently formed body called Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change that had its first meeting at the IGF 2008 . Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change ( DCICC ) is proving to be an emerging issue for us at ICT. The issue was first highlighted by Dr Arthur Levin in his paper here. ITU put together an impressive report on the actual issue that can be accessed here . According to Dr Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of ITU , ICT’s currently contribute to 2-3 % of the Greenhouse gas emissions. To get better understanding of the issue one can view the following youtube videos available here .

The Second issue that is of increasing concern is that in the recent times we are rapidly moving towards ubiquitous internet / mobile computing wherein we are virtually online for all the hours that we are awake either from our desktops or from our mobile. The internet is a key enabler in todays world but at the same time by itself is uncharted territory for most of the new users and there are so many ways that one can loose direction or be lured into some scam or other . With the advent of Web 2.0 it has made the challenges immense as most of it is user generated content. Hence there is a crying Need for an Internet Interpol. Can we have a common law across the globe ?

Whenever there is a infringement or a crime committed online it is found that perpetrator of the crime is in some corner of the earth and the crime is committed at another part of the world and the victim is somewhere else. Apart from the logistic challege to bring the crime to light there is evenn greater challenge to bring such perpetrators to the book and accountability. It needs governements to work together in unison to bring such criminals to task. Currently there is a need for intervention from the other country and based on reciprocity. We have all understood the grave nature of this issue and brought into place IT acts and IETF’s and CERT’s but still the porous nature exist where cross border cybercrime is concerned. Unless there is a untified task force available like a UN body this kind of crime cannot be curbed. Harmonization of cyber law with mechanism and framework for cross border coordination is needed. We need to codify common principles that can be adopted by participating countries in their legal jurispudence and bring about commonality approach

Both these issue need our participation and attention in this ever increasing world of Internet.